Tricky Turn-Out (and one tenacious tot)!

When I saw this video, I had to share; this little one is just too cute!  I've seen many of my students struggle with mastering first position as well.  Turn-out (an outward rotation of the legs from the hips) is one of the most iconic images people recognize in dancers, and trying to figure out how turn-out works is not easy, which is why we start learning it at such an early age!  

Many people wonder why ballet dancers use turn-out in the first place, it's not a natural movement of the body, can put stress on ankles and knees, and is just so difficult!  Turn-out actually not only helps dancers move faster in quicker steps such as petit and grand allegro, but it gives them a greater range of movement and motion.  In the court of Louis the XIV, not only did men's fashions (in that day, men did the majority of theatre dancing) demand them to use turn out (their wide topped boots forced them to turn their legs out when they moved), but theaters in that day sat audiences only on one side, and dancers could really only move side to side, and were not allowed to turn their backs to the members of the audience.

I admire this little ballerinas tenacity... my favorite tactic is when kids literally try to place their own feet in first position, usually resulting in them falling over, but hey, if at first you don't succeed....!